[1.3.0] Kerbalism v1.2.9

[N70]

May I recommend adding a short range, high speed antenna early game, in order to make early rocket launches (especially w/ UbM) w/ transmissions not a game of crossing your fingers and trying to make makeshift landing gear 

[Gotmachine]

49 minutes ago, AVaughan said:

Atm I'm having problems with doing an orbital survey [...] When I click perform orbital survey I don't get any feedback from the UI [...]

Was about to report the same thing, the "perform orbital survey" button has no effect. Nothing in the logs.

Also, I was expecting it but the survey scanner from Orbital Survey Plus by @Wheffle doesn't work either. Seems related to the signal or science feature, throw exceptions continuously when trying to transmit the survey back to KSC :

Spoiler

[WRN 23:05:07.634] [R&D]: No Experiment definition found with id -436640
[EXC 23:05:07.635] NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
    KERBALISM.Science.experiment_name (System.String subject_id)
    KERBALISM.DataStream.current_file ()
    KERBALISM.Antenna.Update ()

 

2 hours ago, APlayer said:

but making a return vessel can't be more profitable

It definitely is for Mun/Minmus exploration (I tried return and transmission mission profiles for both). You get the science faster, allows you to return samples, is easier to set up and I think it cost less too. So looking at the transmission rates at interplanetary ranges, I am pretty sure that it is faster and easier to pack a 2 ton 4000 Dv return probe that can do kerbin reentry and come back quickly with some samples as a bonus.

Edited December 11, 2016 by Gotmachine

[AVaughan]

If you have access to parachutes and decouplers then you should be able to recover your probe core?  Or do you start UbM without parachutes these days?

[N70]

Just now, AVaughan said:

If you have access to parachutes and decouplers then you should be able to recover your probe core?  Or do you start UbM without parachutes these days?

parachutes w/ UbM are unlocked w/ Survivablity...

[ThRodrigues]

2 hours ago, Gotmachine said:

Was about to report the same thing, the "perform orbital survey" button has no effect. Nothing in the logs

This has happened to me as well as not being able to access KerbNet through the Narrow-Band Scanner. I am pleased to report that this has affected the SCANSat that relies on these scanners to obtain data on planetary resources, without it ScanSat becomes 'blind'.
But I have already found the solution for SCANSat in the settings of the MOD in game: Settings Menu> Resourse Settings Window> Mark Disable Stock Scanning
After that, just go to the stock scanner and start scanning.

This also deactivates KerbNet for once making the player dependent on SCANSat to look for features, but at least something will work and I particularly prefer what is offered by that mod than the stock.

Sorry the english, everything was translated by google translate

Edited December 11, 2016 by ThRodrigues

[ShotgunNinja]

Thanks everybody for the feedback and the bug reports. I really appreciate that. I wrote the bugs down and will go through them one at a time in the next days. Now I will reply to some of the comments, but I will go back on others in some time.

 

6 hours ago, nosscire said:

Like the way ECLSS works. I'd keep them as they are, but i'd love to see additional expansions to the concept, although I don't have any specific idea at this time

I tried to come up with a 5th ECLSS module... found nothing interesting to add. So if anybody has some ideas about other ECLSS modules I would be glad to consider them.

 

5 hours ago, Gotmachine said:

• Transmitting science is very unbalanced, to the the point of being useless. Even for interplanetary science, it's a lot easier and faster to simply put together a tiny vessel to return the experiments to Kerbin : no huge ec storage / consumption, no need for a big heavy antenna. I think you need to introduce something so storing and returning data has a drawback. [...]
• Maybe data sizes and/or ec consumption of antennas are too high.
• Partly because of the above, the "Laboratory" is useless. There is no point of changing returnable data into transmissible data considering the requirements to do so (ec/mass cost, having LS for scientists). I can't find a case where it is easier to return the samples to a laboratory instead of directly to Kerbin. I think the cost of having scientists in space should give a bonus somehow, maybe less OP than stock, but still substantial. [...]

Putting aside if the transmission rate, transmission cost or data size are unbalanced.

Why you want to transmit data instead of recovering it? Because you can't or don't want the vessel to return home. You can design the mission completely differently if you have the luxury of not having to return. With the same mass then, you can go farther or do some more involved missions anyway.

Why you want to analyze the sample in place, instead of recovering it? Because you are on some kind of permanent installation somewhere. That is where the lab belong, not on 'lab hopper' things (I hate those).

 

4 hours ago, APlayer said:

Increasing the MTBF by 500% should also cost more than, how much is it, like 20% or so? I think it would be more balanced to double, not more, the MTBF, and increase both cost and mass, to 200% and 125% respectively - makes sense, IMO: Small modifications would add some mass, but not very much, but the high quality requires definitely a lot of extra work and double checking, better materials, ... so the cost drastically increases

I agree 100%, I'll test some new numbers for high-quality. I was worried about increasing mass too much, so went very conservative on it.

 

4 hours ago, APlayer said:

5 hours ago, Gotmachine said:

[...] Maybe you could get ride of the "free storage" : introduce "data containers" parts (stock science container ?) + configurable modules in pods/probe cores that have limited data storage capacity, EC consumption, mass and can fail in some way (reliability). [...]

Totally, this! Although, having your hard drives fail would suck. The thing is, you can't make redundancy here. If it fails while holding your data, you may aswell delete the probe and launch another. Backups would be an option, but... Well, I don't think it would be fun to have the one component fail which holds your mission's essence, with no real way to work around it or account for it.

At first I implemented limited storage per hard-drive. The data was also stored locally in a specific hard-drive (instead now it is stored per-vessel, and the HardDrive module act just as an user interface). That didn't work too well for various reasons:

• there was the chance of losing data for lack of capacity when for example an EVA kerbal board or two vessels dock (losing data is not fun)
• the user has no way to plan around the storage capacity aspect, mostly because he doesn't have any way to see how much data it will have to store, etc...
• being forced to add a pod (or a probe core) to store some extra data, or even a dedicated parts (like eg: a little hard drive) is not that interesting

[ShotgunNinja]

8 hours ago, N70 said:

Transmission rates need to be buffed. Early game in a UbM career + Kerbalism is hard due to the slow transmission rates....

I understand what you are saying. Right now I am unceremoniously scaling up all non-stock experiment data sizes by 25x, including the UbM telemetry. I wonder, if I stop doing that and instead scale some non-stock experiment data size ad-hoc (like DMagic Orbital Science stuff) but not others (like UbM telemetry), would that do it? I am not an user of UbM, so what I'm asking is this: would you be able to unlock survivability by simply getting some telemetry data?

[ShotgunNinja]

Found the issue with the 'orbital survey'. It just bypass the science dialog and send data to the comms. Also it is using 'survey' in the subject id, but there is no definition in stock for it...That will result in the orbital survey data being not visible in the RnD archives UI, so that's a bit a weird decision for squad. Anyway, I should be able to hijack that data as Antenna module is still implementing the stock data transmitter to deal with the case that Science is disabled. That will also add support for any eventual third-party mods doing a similar thing. Including 'orbital survey plus', hopefully. That too is doing funky things with the subject id.

[Wheffle]

1 hour ago, ShotgunNinja said:

Found the issue with the 'orbital survey'. It just bypass the science dialog and send data to the comms...

When I dug into it I found this to be odd as well. It seems to circumvent the science system altogether and save its state only in a separate scenario (ResourceScenario). Unfortunately I hacked OSP to do what I figured the stock system was doing anyway, probably very clumsily at that.

[cnose]

Hello, I'm loving how extensive this mod is so far. I'm having an issue with the Historical Progression Contract Pack though - if the contract says I need to have an antenna, as long as the Signal feature is enabled, the antennas don't trigger that part of the contract as complete. When I disabled the Signal feature in the config, the antennas were recognized. So I assume it must be something in Signal.cfg but I am not sure what I would need to change.

[ShotgunNinja]

@cnose I am making stock contracts check against the Antenna module used in Signal. It work by simply adding 'Antenna' to the list of modules KSP consider antennas.

Historical Progression Contract Pack is using ContractConfigurator, so this is related to how ContractConfigurator detect if a module is a valid antenna. There doesn't seem to be a way from my side to make it aware that Antenna is an antenna, but I only had a quick look at its code so could be wrong about this.

[ShotgunNinja]

10 hours ago, Gotmachine said:

The OKTO must be the first (root) part so when undocking you are in control of this one.

• Launch the vessel and cheat it into kerbin orbit.
• Activate SAS, notice that you have the SAS level of the HECS (stability + prograde + retrograde).
• Undock, you are now in control of the OKTO core
• Look at the SAS levels, you should have only stability, but you still have prograde + retrograde (the control level is still the HECS one)

 

Stock bug. Probably. Can you try to replicate it without Kerbalism installed, just to iron that out.
 

10 hours ago, Gotmachine said:

I noticed those similar occurrences :

• A vessel that has a probe core and an antenna, but no link (so it is non-controlable) : stays non-controlable if boarded by an EVA Kerbal.
• When undocking/docking with a different control status (related to signal or not, this also happens with manned ships)

I can't replicate this, for the life of mine.

 

10 hours ago, Gotmachine said:

• Another bug : when the "data view" contains many experiments so the window become longer than the screen height, there is an "offset cursor" bug : the location the game think the cursor is is different of the real cursor location . Maybe the window should be made scrollable, if possible.

Fixed this one just now.
 

10 hours ago, Gotmachine said:

• Finally, a suggestion : the kerbalism messages are really tiny compared to everything else in the UI. I think you could do resize to double the current size.

There is an option now in Settings called 'StockMessages'. Set it to true to use the stock messaging system in place of my own.

[ShotgunNinja]

12 hours ago, nosscire said:

Data transmission works great for me, but I also play with Kerbal Construction Time. The only thing that I noticed is issues with balance together with other mods, for example DMagic-Science. Some of his experiements are already quite allot heavier in transmission compared to stock, and when you then scale them up, it can become a bit absurd. Maybe look at some non-linear scaling, where experiments that are already heavier data wise are scaled up less? This would alleviate the need for compability patches to some degree.

I'm going to remove the general 25x multiplication to all non-stock experiments, and instead set the data scale for DMagic experiments ad-hoc. I through it was fine to just scale everything non-stock up, but apparently I was wrong: see the issue mentioned above with UbM telemetry.

 

12 hours ago, nosscire said:

For antennas I like it the way it works now, but if possible maybe allow for antennas to be activated at any time? I remember that Remote Tech has a feature like that - or maybe it was a Remote Tech plugin? Essentially, even when you had no connection, you could still activate antennas. It may not be realistic, but few things sucks as bad as having slingshotted what is essentially a brick towards Duna, because you forgot to enable the correct antenna. Not sure if this would work with the way your signal system works.

...and...

9 hours ago, APlayer said:

• As mentioned earlier, antenna retracting and loosing signal... I think a confirmation would be the cleanest way, but if that is hard to implement indeed, then I would say always enable extending antennae. My other "cheat less" solution would be to have a timer of say 30 seconds in which you can change your mind and extend the antenna again, but I guess that is hard to implement. Or even as you said, lock it down alltogether, if it is the last. I fail to see how one would want to retract their last antenna. AntennaSleep integration would be nice, in this case.

For the retractable antennas, I got these options on my desk right now.

• (1) make ExtendAntenna default to false in Settings
• (2) having the antenna extendible even when there is no control
• (3) extend all antennas automatically when signal is lost (even when vessel is not loaded)
• (4) make low-gain antennas work even when not extended

Also I just realized that one can create a script to extend antennas when signal is lost. So there is that too.

[N70]

11 hours ago, ShotgunNinja said:

I understand what you are saying. Right now I am unceremoniously scaling up all non-stock experiment data sizes by 25x, including the UbM telemetry. I wonder, if I stop doing that and instead scale some non-stock experiment data size ad-hoc (like DMagic Orbital Science stuff) but not others (like UbM telemetry), would that do it? I am not an user of UbM, so what I'm asking is this: would you be able to unlock survivability by simply getting some telemetry data?

IIRC, survivability is 9 science, after engineering.

[Gotmachine]

13 hours ago, ShotgunNinja said:

Historical Progression Contract Pack is using ContractConfigurator, so this is related to how ContractConfigurator detect if a module is a valid antenna. There doesn't seem to be a way from my side to make it aware that Antenna is an antenna, but I only had a quick look at its code so could be wrong about this.

@cnose I'm currently working on a MM patch to support the most obvious issues with Contract Configurator. You can download it here. Currently fixes antenna and science lab requirements, I plan to update it for life support specific missions in the "Bases and Stations" contract pack. To anyone, PM me if you find any other issues or contract packs that need additional support (does anyone know of contracts requiring ISRU, drills or fuel cells ?)

To @ShotgunNinja : On completion of this patch, you can of course include it in the Kerbalism download.

Also, a quick question to anyone familiar with ModuleManager (sorry for asking this here) : is it possible for a MM patch to edit the NEEDS section of a module defined elswhere ? I can't find a way to do that...

12 hours ago, ShotgunNinja said:

Stock bug. Probably. Can you try to replicate it without Kerbalism installed, just to iron that out.

You were right, this also happens in a stock install. Also didn't find a way to reproduce the other cases, I think you can forget this one. Sorry for the lost time researching that.

EDIT : On the antenna question, i'm definetly for :  (2) having the antenna extendible even when there is no control

Edited December 12, 2016 by Gotmachine

[kraden]

8 hours ago, ShotgunNinja said:

For the retractable antennas, I got these options on my desk right now.

• (1) make ExtendAntenna default to false in Settings
• (2) having the antenna extendible even when there is no control
• (3) extend all antennas automatically when signal is lost (even when vessel is not loaded)
• (4) make low-gain antennas work even when not extended

Also I just realized that one can create a script to extend antennas when signal is lost. So there is that too.

Please not number 3. DMagic Orbital Science has a few dishes that are both antennas and science that are non-retractable. After deploying them, the craft's CG is adjusted. This can make the craft uncontrollable if you weren't ready to deploy the antenna yet.

I personally favor leaving it the way it is or going with number 4.

[DMagic]

13 hours ago, ShotgunNinja said:

Found the issue with the 'orbital survey'. It just bypass the science dialog and send data to the comms. Also it is using 'survey' in the subject id, but there is no definition in stock for it...That will result in the orbital survey data being not visible in the RnD archives UI, so that's a bit a weird decision for squad. Anyway, I should be able to hijack that data as Antenna module is still implementing the stock data transmitter to deal with the case that Science is disabled. That will also add support for any eventual third-party mods doing a similar thing. Including 'orbital survey plus', hopefully. That too is doing funky things with the subject id.

The orbital survey (and science lab transmission) are using triggered data transmissions, that is, they set the Triggered flag in the Science Data to true.

This bypasses the R&D center while still allowing for standard transmission through an antenna (extending the antenna, using EC). Adding science points to the R&D is handled separately for triggered transmissions. And they also fire a separate event: OnTriggeredDataTransmission.

[N70]

Quote

For the retractable antennas, I got these options on my desk right now.

• (1) make ExtendAntenna default to false in Settings
• (2) having the antenna extendible even when there is no control
• (3) extend all antennas automatically when signal is lost (even when vessel is not loaded)
• (4) make low-gain antennas work even when not extended

I'd prefer 2 or 4

[APlayer]

16 hours ago, ShotgunNinja said:

[...] being forced to add a pod (or a probe core) to store some extra data, or even a dedicated parts (like eg: a little hard drive) is not that interesting

It has one single benefit, that, for me, beats everything else: You can get your science out of the big experiments and do a sample return mission. You just have this part and you can definitely say where your science is.

I am not sure if that is possible the way it is right now (this is a question).

 

10 hours ago, ShotgunNinja said:

[...] For the retractable antennas, I got these options on my desk right now.

• (1) make ExtendAntenna default to false in Settings
• (2) having the antenna extendible even when there is no control
• (3) extend all antennas automatically when signal is lost (even when vessel is not loaded)
• (4) make low-gain antennas work even when not extended

Also I just realized that one can create a script to extend antennas when signal is lost. So there is that too.

1) I do not like this one. It allows you to either a) basically stow your antenna anywhere and still be able to use it or b) have the old issue if you set this flag back to true.

2) Makes more sense to me.

3) This has a drawback, you can't keep your antennae retracted during aerobraking or reentry.

4) Would only help if there is a relay nearby, or if you're still at Kerbin. Low gain antennae would not work else.

 

So, IMO, 2 it is. I'd have more complex suggestions, but, as the name implies, they are more complex. 2 seems "cheap and cheerful".

[Peder]

12 hours ago, ShotgunNinja said:

• (3) extend all antennas automatically when signal is lost (even when vessel is not loaded)

 

I would like to suggest the above option.
- Reason is that if people install kerbalism then most people will get a positive experience and not risk loosing control of their ships.
BUT option 2 where you always manual can extend is also good.

Edited December 12, 2016 by Peder

[APlayer]

I am still unsure about how the science works... Could anyone take the time to explain me, please?

• Sensors (Thermometer, Barometer, (why not Geiger Counter?)) I have totally no idea how you collect this data over time, or how does it work at all?
• Samples (You have to return them home, and that's it?)
• What about the normal experiments, like the Geiger Counter is now? You just transmit it?

[Nansuchao]

I have a suggestion for the antenna issue: what if just to control a probe the built-in antenna is enough and we need the external ones just to transmit?

[ShotgunNinja]

@DMagic Thanks, that is useful. So to help me understand: they could not use the 'standard' way of doing it because there is no way to obtain the science value, cap, or data scale (and that is because there is no experiment definition, still trying to figure out the rationale of that). So this 'triggered' flag was slapped in, to have the science credited directly using RnD.AddScience() (that doesn't require the missing information) instead of the RnD.SubmitScienceData() function. If what I infer is correct, then how is the science value determined for these 'experiments'? Ad-hoc, hard-coded?

 

[ShotgunNinja]

11 hours ago, kraden said:

Please not number 3. DMagic Orbital Science has a few dishes that are both antennas and science that are non-retractable. After deploying them, the craft's CG is adjusted. This can make the craft uncontrollable if you weren't ready to deploy the antenna yet.

Yes you are right. And also potential issues with atmospheric flight. So (3) is trashed.
 

8 hours ago, APlayer said:

It has one single benefit, that, for me, beats everything else: You can get your science out of the big experiments and do a sample return mission. You just have this part and you can definitely say where your science is.

I am not sure if that is possible the way it is right now (this is a question).

It is possible to do it already, the functionality is in every manned pod or probe core (in every part that has an HardDrive module). You click on 'Transfer data here' in the part RMB ui. If the button is not visible, that mean the data is already in that part.
 

7 hours ago, Peder said:

I would like to suggest (3).
- Reason is that if people install kerbalism then most people will get a positive experience and not risk loosing control of their ships.

I understand. Maybe I can extend all antennas in existing vessels when Kerbalism is added to a new savegame. Is a bit involved, but can technically be done.
 

5 hours ago, APlayer said:

I am still unsure about how the science works... Could anyone take the time to explain me, please?

• Sensors (Thermometer, Barometer, (why not Geiger Counter?)) I have totally no idea how you collect this data over time, or how does it work at all?
• Samples (You have to return them home, and that's it?)
• What about the normal experiments, like the Geiger Counter is now? You just transmit it?

The data collection over time has been posponed to a later version. Any data that is not transmissible is considered 'samples'. There is no conceptual difference between a GeigerCounter and the other 'sensor-like' experiments, nor it will be in later versions.
 

4 hours ago, Nansuchao said:

I have a suggestion for the antenna issue: what if just to control a probe the built-in antenna is enough and we need the external ones just to transmit?

I considered it (early on, before the issue with extendible antennas), but there are 9 antennas now in stock. Also it will be a bit weird to have let's say a 'voyager' style mission receive commands at 100Gm without a big high-gain.

Edited December 13, 2016 by ShotgunNinja
typo

[DMagic]

39 minutes ago, ShotgunNinja said:

Thanks, that is useful. So to help me understand: they could not use the 'standard' way of doing it because there is no way to obtain the science value, cap, or data scale (and that is because there is no experiment definition, still trying to figure out the rationale of that). So this 'triggered' flag was slapped in, to have the science credited directly using RnD.AddScience() (that doesn't require the missing information) instead of the RnD.SubmitScienceData() function. If what I infer is correct, then how is the science value determined for these 'experiments'? Ad-hoc, hard-coded?

I imagine the idea was to preserves as much of the data transmitter code as possible, so that you could transmit two different types of science. Originally the other type of science triggered a callback when the transmission was complete (hence the name), but at some point it was changed to a game event which accomplished essentially the same thing, while allowing other things to listen for that transmission.

This dual-use science transmission system has caused no end of problems with mods that fiddle with data transmission, like Remote Tech or Science Alert. But it can also be handy, because you can trick the transmitter into going through the motions and consuming EC without actually sending anything. For Science Relay I temporarily set the triggered flag when transmitting data between two vessels then change it back when the game event fires (the last argument in the event tells you if the transmission was successful, so it fires even if you run out of EC). 

I think the science value comes from the Celestial Body's recovered data multiplier (which is what basically all science that isn't  tied to a specific situation uses, along with things like contract rewards). There is also a multiplier field in the M700 part config.